[This book review by Dr. Howard Hurwitz appeared in the
February 1988 issue of The St. Croix
Review, pp. 46-47.The book under
review was later republished, with an updating chapter on multiculturalism, by
Scott-Townsend Publishers as Liberalism
in Contemporary America.]

Book Review

Liberal Thought in
Modern America

Dwight D. Murphey

University Press of America,
1987

Reviewed by Howard Hurwitz

Dwight D.
Murphey of Wichita State University has devoted over two decades to a critical
survey of Western civilization over the centuries.In this fourth and final volume, which can be
fully appreciated on its own, he examines liberalism in the United
States during the 19th and 20th
centuries.

We have in
Dr. Murphey a no-nonsense scholar who might well invite the animus of liberal
hit-men.He names names and what is even
more threatening from the viewpoint of liberals, he lets them speak for
themselves as they make clear their positions.They are far more closely linked to socialism than to any other ism.It is evident from Dr. Murphey’s analysis that it is conservatives who
are the classical liberals; today’s liberals are the negation of classical
liberals who rejected government domination of their lives.

Although
Dr. Murphey pulverizes liberal thought, especially as it has been enunciated in
The Nation and The New Republic, virtual diaries of liberal thought, he does not
stoop to invective.He writes clearly
and confidently with no fear of treading on toes as big as the two progressive Roosevelts
and the smaller socialist toes of John Dewey, Thorstein Veblen, and John
Galbraith, among many others.

Although it
is liberal thought that occupies his attention, his political assessments are
pertinent.It is dismaying but
nonetheless true, as Dr. Murphey observes, that “Despite Reagan’s strongly
conservative philosophy, neither presidential election in which he was elected
was made a vehicle for a philosophical articulation of conservatism.”

Dr.
Murphey’s provocative generalizations and fingering of persons whom he charges
with “dissimulating,” are documented in footnotes at the end of chapters.There is a helpful index.

The book is printed in a kind of typescript
that may repel initially, although it is very clear.It is only a matter of moments, however,
before you will be captivated by the insights of a thorough scholar who has
earned a sure place among our foremost conservative thinkers.

Howard Hurwitz,
president of University Professor for Academic Order and author of An Encyclopedia Dictionary of American History.